Tony Rice Manzanita

[Rex Hart]

Is Manzanita the best Tony Rice recording? How can you beat Old train, Blue Railroad Train,Ginseng Sullivan an Home From the Forest ? There is just something special about this recording that seperates it from Cold On the Shoulder and Plays and Sings Bluegrass. Can't put my finger on it....just sounds more spontaneous.

[AlanN]

Yes, this was a watershed record. And it was a new sound. I used to listen to a bg radio show on Saturday mornings back then, and record much off the radio onto cassette. Home From The Forest, BRR, all that good stuff. More than 30 years ago...freaky.

[Spruce]

Is Manzanita the best Tony Rice recording? How can you beat Old train, Blue Railroad Train,Ginseng Sullivan an Home From the Forest ? There is just something special about this recording that seperates it from Cold On the Shoulder and Plays and Sings Bluegrass. Can't put my finger on it....just sounds more spontaneous.

Try to find the recording of Tony and the Manzanita bunch at the Great American Music Hall from around this period...

It's a wonderful companion piece to "Manzanita".....

[Galileo]

Funny I was listening to this earlier today, as it had been awhile. Although slightly different vein, "Church Street Blues" ranks up their with this, IMHO. Another album that doesn't have a slacker in the bunch.

RE

[Perry]

How can you beat Old train, Blue Railroad Train,Ginseng Sullivan an Home From the Forest ?

You really can't

But as far as the evolution of Tony's playing Unit of Measure is a great listen.

p.s. There's an short YouTube clip of Tony playing Blackberry Blossom that's still one of the best versions out there

[re simmers]

All of Tony's recordings are the best, but Manzanita is a special recording. Rice seems to be the standard by which every guitarist measures himself. In my humble opinion, his producing and singing (was) are in the same category. An amazingly talented artist.

"Me & My Guitar" is my personal favorite, with "Green Light on the Southern," "Sweetheart Like You" & "Fine as Fine."

Bob

[AlanN]

And here the Rice Man takes a trip down to Georgia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sDml...eature=related

[EdHanrahan]

There's commentary in the Ricky Skaggs article in the current Fretboard Journal.

[SternART]

Manzanita IS a very special album. I was in the studio at Arch Street when it was recorded......there was great energy....... it was like a reunion for those guys. The DGQ were grooving high at the time & it was like combining Tony's current band, the DGQ guys...... with some of his old buddies. What a supergroup of guys........like a bunch of young bucks really feelin' their oats........and the recording captures that good energy everyone was feeling. Look at the careers all those musicians have had. Definitely my favorite Tony Rice album!

[Greg H.]

There was a real opening from the mid 70s until about 80 or so. Starting with the JD Crowe album in '75, and then followed with Manzanita, the Grisman Rounder album, and after that Boone Creek. Maybe I've just become an old codger thinking about the "good old days" but it really seemed as though those recordings had/have more bounce....more feeling. Whereas a lot of the new recordings seem almost over recorded, losing the immediacy of the music/musicians.

Ok, yes I am an old codger, but what was going on then was really new. So much seemed a door inviting us in. There are great new CDs every year, and I'm still buying them left and right, but...........

[Alex Orr]

I love his two albums with Norman, but yeah...Manzanita is not only the best Rice album I've heard but the best bluegrass album I've ever heard.

[John McGann]

Manzanita IS a very special album. I was in the studio at Arch Street when it was recorded......there was great energy....... it was like a reunion for those guys. The DGQ were grooving high at the time & it was like combining Tony's current band, the DGQ guys...... with some of his old buddies. What a supergroup of guys........like a bunch of young bucks really feelin' their oats........and the recording captures that good energy everyone was feeling. Look at the careers all those musicians have had. Definitely my favorite Tony Rice album!

YEAH! Also from the same zone/vibe is side one of Tony Trischka's Banjoland album, and Darol's Fiddlistics... that was a heck of a revolution!

[AlanN]

My intro to the Tony Rice world was either Grisman's Rounder Record, Tony's Rounder Guitar LP (Rattlesnake, Temperance Reel) or the Rounder 0044 JD Crowe and NS. They were all around the same time.

So clean, sparkling and effervescent (gee, sounds like an adult beverage).

[SternART]

Manzanita & the first DGQ album have stood the test of time.........and will achieve cult status to be revered by future seekers of the real deal in acoustic music.....much like Miles Davis' Kind of Blue in jazz.

[Darryl Wolfe]

Thanks for reminding me that the only music on my work computer here is that album. Had to look a while to find it

[Shawn Blackwell]

Maybe I've just become an old codger thinking about the "good old days" but it really seemed as though those recordings had/have more bounce....more feeling. Whereas a lot of the new recordings seem almost over recorded, losing the immediacy of the music/musicians.

Ok, yes I am an old codger, but what was going on then was really new. So much seemed a door inviting us in. There are great new CDs every year, and I'm still buying them left and right, but...........

Funny how sometimes someone says something that captures your "feeling" better than you could say it. Greg H

[pickinNgrinnin]

This is my favorite BG album and back in the day, I don't think anyone could touch Tony's singing and playing. I've heard over they years he used an Ovation Guitar on the Manzanita album. Not sure that's true but he could make an Estaban Guitar sound good.

[Pete Counter]

He may have but I believe thats "the bone" on the cover, correct me if Im wrong please.

[Kentuckythunderman]

I just recorded an Album with hi brother Wyatt On Guitar and he KILLS manzanita....great picking, if anyone is interested in picking up a copy in about a month when its out email me at
banjarfool@yahoo.com

[mandolirius]

Manzanita & the first DGQ album have stood the test of time.........and will achieve cult status to be revered by future seekers of the real deal in acoustic music.....much like Miles Davis' Kind of Blue in jazz.

Agreed! These are classics of the genre. But my favourite TR album is one that is rarely mentioned......"Native American". It's not strictly a bluegrass album but I think it captures Tony at his fullest, most musically mature phase. It's an album I can listen to over and over without tiring of it.

[fscotte]

I believe what you're hearing in Manzanita album are the mistakes. As Tony has said, they didn't do several takes of the songs, but only 1 or 2 and chose the best based on the feel, and left the mistakes in there. I think too perfect can lead to a very sterile, clinical sound, which doesn't tickle the senses like "real" playing.

[Craig Burgess]

I first came to Rice from his "California Autumn" LP, so that one may remain my favorite.

[Philippe Bony]

This is my favorite BG album and back in the day, I don't think anyone could touch Tony's singing and playing. I've heard over they years he used an Ovation Guitar on the Manzanita album. Not sure that's true but he could make an Estaban Guitar sound good.

(From "Still Inside, the Tony Rice Story", page 252)
"I have played other guitars, even on record. I played a Santa Cruz on several songs on Mar West and I also used an Ovation on the tune Manzanita, on two cuts on Hot Dawg, several from Mar West and every tune on Backwaters except one, Common Ground. That's my D28 -you'd have to be an idiot not to hear that."

Well, I'm an idiot...

[AlanN]

Yet, on the back side of the Backwaters album cover, that ain't no Ovation he is photographed holding...hmmm.

My first extended exposure to TR was a Rounder Records cassette (real release) of the recording with Big Mon, Temperance Reel, Rattlesnake, Way Downtown, etc., so that one holds a special place in me heart, around 1976.

[Fretbear]

Manzanita was such a powerful and perfect recording that it almost singlehandedly never allowed me to give up trying to learn how to play, because it proved that whatever you had to do or go through in order to make music was worth it.